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Most of today’s Jewish and Arabic-speaking populations share a strong genetic link to the ancient Canaanites, according to a new study condu

Study finds ancient Canaanites genetically linked to modern populations

Today’s #Jews and #Arabs in Israel, Jordan and Lebanon get half their ancestry from Bronze Age Levantines

Hello, friends! I apologize for my absence as of late, I unfortunately ended up in a situation where I didn't have access to the internet for a little while and had to get everything sorted out. There's a lot of things I'm excited to do here, but for now I'd just like to hopefully make up for it with these sketches of ancient symbols of ʾEl-ʿElyon and Lady ʾAsherah :)

Great Seal of ʾAsherah: This is the ʾAsherah-tree symbol as it appears on the famous Pithos A from the Kuntillet ʿAjrud site. It probably came from around the early 8th century BCE when the former Judean outpost was under Northern Israelite control and bears a now-famous inscription mentioning “Yahweh of Samaria and ʾAsheratah.” The ornately-depicted Sacred Tree nourishes two flanking ibex, the sacred animal of ʾAsherah, and rests above a lion which symbolizes a Deity's strength in ancient Canaanite iconography.

Small Seal of ʾAsherah: This more simplistic iteration of the Tree-and-Ibex symbol is found on the famous Lachish ewer from the end of the Bronze Age and is most notable for its remarkable resemblance to the Menorah of the later Temple of Yahweh at Jerusalem.

Small Solar Seal of ʾEl: This design is found on the head of a sceptre held by a bronze seated figurine of ʾEl in intact gold leaf from a Bronze-Age Temple at Megiddo. It was made around the same time as the Lachish ewer and is believed to invoke the Sun and its beams in a similar way to more recognizable Egyptian or Mesopotamian solar symbols. Another theory holds that it depicts a flower.

Seal of the House of ʾEl: Yet another 13th century BCE find, this peculiar insignia is featured on a bronze sceptre head coated in silver leaf which would have been inserted into a wooden pole to be grasped by a life-sized cult statue of ʾEl. A stylized human face is flanked by serpents and zigzag lines topped with an upturned crescent. At the bottom and the top is another sign resembling the omega-shaped womb symbol originally associated with the Mother Goddess Ninhursag of the Sumerian Pantheon (cf. the cow uterus headdress of the ancient Egyptian childbirth Goddess Meskhenet and the “Hathoric curls” hairstyle associated with Lady ʿAshtart and Qadesh). This design was described as a “cult standard” by the archaeological team who discovered it in a destruction layer at Hazor in the 1950s and I've interpreted it to symbolize the House of ʾEl which is also the House of all the Gods and Goddesses. The artifact was found in what appeared to be a small shrine indicating it possibly received some kind of veneration of its own.

Great Solar Seal of ʾEl: This is from another bronze sceptre head with silver leaf and was discovered in a 12th century BCE layer at the site of a Canaanite Temple in Lachish (Tell ed-Duweir). I've followed the interpretation that this is a solar symbol similar to the one from Megiddo. A solar disc with three nesting circles is backed by a sort of oblong "halo" which represents the Firmament of Heaven in my view. The Sun with its life-giving rays shown descending upon the Earth here has been interpreted as an anthropomorphic figure as well. I can also see the broad outer bands and the thin inner streams having to do with ʾEl's Abode of Mount Lalu being located “at the Source of the Two Rivers, at the Confluence of the Channels of the Two Deeps” according to Ugaritic texts.

Thanks so much for checking this out!

My source for the pictures of and information on the ʾEl sceptres is “The sceptres of life-sized divine statues from Canaanite Lachish and Hazor” by Yosef Garfinkel in Antiquity 94:375 (2020), pp. 669–685, https://doi.org/10.15184/aqy.2020.44.